The Flash: "Back to Normal"Review

Can The Flash still function when its title character is powerless? That’s the question the show has to address as barry and his friends confront the aftermath of their most recent battle with Zoom. Barry has to readjust to being an ordinary guy again, and everyone in Team Flash has to face the conundrum of protecting Central City without the Fastest Man Alive backing them up. That premise made for a decent follow-up to last week’s dramatic installment, but “Back to Normal” definitely felt like a quiet interlude as the show builds towards more interesting conflicts again.

The title of this episode was appropriate on multiple levels. Barry’s struggle to adjust to being ordinary was very much at the heart of the conflict this week The opening sequence captured that struggle nicely, contrasting a day in the life of the Flash with the mundane reality Barry now faces. When you’re used to running to work in the blink of an eye, being stuck riding a bus must be murder.

All the same, I appreciated that this episode didn’t go overboard in its portrayal of Barry. He may be depressed, but he didn’t waste time wallowing in self-pity. The real purpose of any good “superhero loses their powers” storyline is to explore the fundamental qualities that make them heroic - qualities that go deeper than super-speed or strength or flight. As we saw this week, Barry is still utterly committed to protecting his city from metahuman threats. He’s just not particularly well equipped for the task any longer.

The other reason the title was appropriate was that “Back to Normal” felt like a return to the Season 1 formula in some ways. Once again, the conflict revolved around the emergence of a new metahuman who was created in the particle accelerator accident. The villain in question was Griffin Grey (Slither’s Haig Sutherland), a man blessed with super-strength but cursed with a rapidly aging body. There were a number of wrinkles to that formula, however, above and beyond the fact that Barry was powerless. We saw Jesse temporarily step in for the absent Caitlin. And we saw Grey target Dr. Wells for revenge, not realizing that he had the wrong Wells.

Too many villains during Season 1 weren’t very well developed beyond their powers, and fortunately that’s not a problem that carried over to this episode. Grey was nothing if not a sympathetic figure (to the point that Team Flash didn’t even bother giving him a supervillain name). He was simply a teenager who had his life overturned by a ruthless, amoral scientist and faced a rapidly ticking clock. He was the ideal sort of villain for the show’s current status quo. He wouldn’t have been much of a threat even early in Barry’s superhero career, but now that our hero was armed with nothing more than a science gun and a partially reinforced suit, Grey proved to be a deadly threat.

He also helped further Wells’ personal journey. Maybe this Wells isn’t directly responsible for the crimes committed by his Earth-1 doppelganger, but this week he was forced to admit that the two men aren’t all that different. Earth-2 Wells is still guilty of lying, manipulating and generally sacrificing the well-being of others in order to further his own agenda. The fact that his agenda boils down to protecting his daughter at all costs helps excuse some of his actions, but he’s still a man with a lot to atone for. Which it seems he’s ready to do, based on how this episode ended.

There were some problems with how Wells’ arc was handled this week. As strong as the interaction between Tom Cavanagh and Violett Beane was in their emotional reunion, Jesse seemed too quick (no pun intended) to forgive her father and excuse the fact that he murdered a man for her sake. Their reconciliation seemed rushed. There’s also the idea that Wells is planning to atone for building his particle accelerator and unleashing an evil speedster upon his world by building another particle accelerator and creating another speedster. What lesson has he learned here, exactly? Hopefully the next episode will address how Wells plans to recreate the Flash without putting Central City’s residents in danger.

Elsewhere this week, Caitlin had to deal with being Zoom’s prisoner and meeting her Earth-2 doppelganger. As always, it’s fun to watch two versions of the same character share the screen. Seeing the prim and proper Caitlin butt heads with the devious, scenery-chewing Killer Frost was almost as entertaining as watching Cisco meet Reverb. Danielle Panabaker certainly succeeded in playing two distinct versions of the same character. Their interaction also provided some interesting food for thought. I doubt the references to Caitlin’s mother and the brother that apparently only existed on Earth-2 are mere throwaway lines. Are we going to get a closer glimpse into Caitlin’s family life once she returns to Earth-1? You also have to wonder how much this ordeal will affect her mind and if there’s a chance that Caitlin will be driven down the same dark path her Earth-2 self was.

Zoom’s mind has clearly seen better days. The reveal of the Zoom’s identity has been a huge boon for a villain that was losing his luster earlier in the season. Here, we saw that Jay is haunted by his traumatic past and perhaps struggling even more to keep it together in the wake of his latest power upgrade. He’s also deluded enough to think that he can force Caitlin to fall back in love with him. As fast as he’s become, Zoom now has a major Achilles’ heel.

It’s also worth noting that this episode managed to stay fairly optimistic despite the darker turn Barry’s life has taken lately. I was glad to see Grey given a happy ending after all the suffering he endured. It would have been depressing if Barry had tricked his opponent into essentially killing himself. Instead, Grey simply reverted back to his normal 18-year-old self. And that meeting between Flash and Wally was a nice moment for both characters. As far as Wally was concerned, it felt like a crucial step towards welcoming him into the Flash’s world. And as for Barry, it was a reminder that, for as questionable as his decisions in the previous episode were, his sacrifice was made for the right reasons.

Aside from the Wells-related wonkiness, there wasn’t much overtly wrong with this episode. The biggest problem “Back to Normal” faced was the sense that it could have been more ambitious. More than anything, I found myself wondering why Cisco wasn’t given a more prominent role this week. Here’s a guy who’s been struggling to understand and harness his metahuman abilities for months now. With Barry down for the count, what better time to put Vibe in the spotlight and allow Cisco to try and carry the torch for Barry? Definitely a missed opportunity there, but hopefully Cisco will have his time in the sun sooner or later.

The Verdict

This episode felt like a conscious throwback to a simpler time in the show's history, but "Back to Normal" introduced enough wrinkles in that formula to stay fresh and engaging. This week introduced a memorable one-off villain and reminded viewers that Barry Allen is a hero, regardless of what powers he may or may not possess. However, some rushed development for Dr. Wells and a general sense that the conflict could have been more ambitious held this episode back from greatness.

Good

This week's Flash was an enjoyable throwback to Season 1, but it could have been more ambitious.